Saturday, June 7, 2014

Marina and the Diamonds: Electra Heart (2012)

I have been Marina’s fan since her
first album The Family Jewels (2010) was
released. Compared to her second album Electra
Heart (2012), the first one is
totally dissimilar. It seems like different personas have written and worked
with albums, it is due to fact that in the first album she is not pretending to
be someone else. Marina herself claims Electra Heart (the character who walks
us through the second album) is not her alter ego, but frankly to me, it might
not be the ultimate truth. Even though, she created fictional character, she
seems very realistic and in our society we can see girls who act, talk
and think or has experienced similar identity crises just like Marina’s
fictional character, who she has described in her tracks. Maybe she herself has
experienced unfortunate love, which helped to create trutful stereotypes. There
are four characters, who are portrayed by Electra Heart, each one is a strong
archetype (Teen Idle, Primadonna, Su-Barbie-A, Homewrecker). In the songs the
stereotypes are not clearly defined by boundry, they coincide, which means
every listener may understand the context of songs differently. Apart from the
story, Marina’s vocals are remarkable. In my opinion she has an incredible
voice range and such a pure and raspy tone at the same time, which indicates
her fresh rawness in a professional way.

A little bit about Marina: her
original name is Marina Lambrini Diamandis. She is Welsh singer-songwriter
(currently 28 years old), who is known by her stage name Marina and the
Diamonds. The group name represents people who have same heart and similar
goals, but they just do not fit in the mainstream society. Her first studio
album is combination and integration of inde
pop and new wave genre elements. Indie
pop is criticized firmly because of its tweeness and those musician, who are
fond of this type of genre, have to work harder and find a way how to
accomplish breakthrough and establish
themselves in music industry.Second album
includes elements of electropop, which
pops up pretty dominantly in her songs. Her fashion style is also unique – she is
well-known for her retro-cartoonish-vintage-cheerleader-(little bit)childlish
look. When I depict this kind of combination it seems very silly, but she
outplays it and tends to make image from grotesque to captivating grown-up
woman.

Instead of dissecting each Electra Heart songs individually, I
think it is more important to savvy the complexity of the content and to analyize
singles and videos, which is a serie. Electra Heart’s journey consist eleven
parts, delivered to us by separate videos. First part is a song Fear and Loathing, where Marina abandons
(kills) her identity by cutting off her hair (symbolizes her past and letting
it go, making fresh start) and becomes Electra Heart. The structure of song is
pretty simple, nothing overproduced and background music helps to capture
Marina’s voice. Though, I think the video is too dramatical.

Second is Radioactive, which shows how Marina
engages fully to fictional character. She is having fun and living life to the
fullest, taking everything it has to offer. At the same time she is using
people and suppressing real feelings/emotions, I would call it denial phase. The
music is nothing special, it is opened to wider audience. It is also quite
catchy and refrain makes me feel good and gives invincible feeling. Part three
introduces archetypes while the melody of The
State of Dreaming plays. This is the part where character starts to play
and experiment different identities.

Fourth part depicts drama queen: Primadonna. It is also the lead single
and the official video has the most views. The lyrics are totally ironical and
sarcastic, which makes this song damn good. Electra Heart is becoming
outragous, arrogant and self-centered person, who starts to wear her heart on
the cheek so she would not get hurt (symbol – losing vulnerability). Electropop elements fits perfectly,
maybe the melody gets little bit annoying, there is not very much variability. Fifth
part is a standalone passage, where the Valley
of the Dolls melody plays and the mockery is represented by criticizing
housewife stereotype. The video is eerie: Marina stands on the porch, facing
the front door, and everything is black-and-white. I would like to point out
the fact that the sixth part Power &
Control is the best and culmination of the story/plot. The melody is powerful,
lyrics fascinating, memoriable, confident, satirical and music video with colorless
(dark-bluish-white-combination, lighting), dark atmosphere is demonstration of
perfection. Some might say this song is boring and too repetitive, but I love
how Marina’s colorful vocals truly comes out.

Unlike from part six, seventh one, How to Be a Heartbreaker, is fun and
seems to represent a typical today’s music industry music video. It includes
sexy boys, shower, beach, car scene, supercilious attitude. Song is catcy and
has a good rhythm, lyrics are not good, not bad, hook is great. I would say it
is an average song. I am not going to say anything about part eight, because
the song is not the album. Ninth passage is an important part of the story,
this is where Electra realizes she has been living in The State of Dreaming – not in reality, phrase “my life is a play”
proves it. I like the beginning and ending, but when the electro-alike music
plays, it is boring (maybe too repetitive). Though, lyrics are great and
singing good. Tenth part Lies is basically
the end of Electra, she is confronting herself and everything she has done,
also the real Marina starts to show up. The video is mostly black-and-white,
she is wearing almost no make-up and her vulnerability is coming forth. Comparing
with other songs, I would say this particular melody has the most electropop elements. I have not decided
yet if I like it or not. Marina is pushing her vocals maybe too far, which adds
more sadness. Acoustic version of the song is so much better, it has more depth
and emotions. Maybe it has something to do with the piano, but it beats the
original version anytime. Vocals are better and it is truly a masterpiece (it
even has more views on youtube).

The final part, Electra Heart, sums everything up. This track was not on the album
and it is a pitty. The music is interesting – does not follow typical
structure. Lyrics are meaningful. “Lights they blind me” and “can we go back to
the start” says everything, there is no need for anything else – regret is
pushing its path towards. Video is a flashback – it is put together by using previous
videos clips: her journey. Finally the character is dead (Marina pulls off her
heart on the cheek, which was the symbol of Electra).

Ofcourse there are more songs in her
journey, but I have to give credit to Marina, she pulled off an amazing storyline
and released eleven videos. I love how everthing is tied together and nothing
stands alone in her album. It is not very typical. Usually artists tend to
connect each song with the title name, atleast this is how it seems to me. Yeah,
some parts of the songs are not so great (too much repetition, boring music)
and I accuse her of being too femine and maybe too depressing. Only female
gender can relate (when they have had similar experience or they accept
stances) and hating men is too dominant, it narrows down the possibility of
having wide male audience. The good news, Electra is only a fictional character
and people should not take her seriously. Marina’s lyrics and vocals are really
something and they should not be forgotten. I recommend to listen each song
carefully.